A more promising day and certainly a warmer one. Today we were on an expedition, we planned a bike ride, either there and back on the same path or a circular route. There being the next town of Gusum, where they manufacture zip fasteners and accessible via a cycle track along a disused railway. We'd read somewhere that the area has been mined for millennia and that there was a museum showing some metalwork so that was as good a reason as any for the excursion. Sandwiches and water bottles on the bike panniers and we were off on our little adventure.

Initially, the bike ride was fine, the dirt road surface was compact and smooth enough for us and we were able to enjoy the sense of quiet and wilderness, even though we were travelling along a man-made path . It was so peaceful and the meadows were full of flowers and of course, the woods full of singing birds. Lovely.

Our pleasure became somewhat muted when the surface changed, and we found ourselves in first gear pedalling through what felt like sand. Fortunately, after a couple of kilometres, things improved and the surface reverted to the original texture and the rest of the 10km ride was accomplished with little trouble, apart from a growing soreness in one’s nether regions!

When we arrived at Gusum, there was very little to see, we certainly didn’t spot a museum but we did find a café so, feeling that we deserved a reward, we went in for a cake and a coffee. The interior of the café was very welcoming, new and clean and certainly accentuated by the very attractive owner. She told us she was a mother of 3 boys, the oldest being 21 and she looked no older than say early 30’s – quite remarkable; it transpires she was 41 and she’d only be running the business for a few months . We wish her every success, I’d certainly go back any day!!!



Thus refreshed and invigorated, we decided upon doing the longer, circular route back, a distance of 26km in all. Rather than following a disused railway, our route took us on proper dirt roads through forest and later, a mixture of forest and pasture. Again, it was lovely and we stopped for lunch on the way. Now I’m sure you recall the tick incident? Julie was NOT keen on stopping but I persuaded her that ticks don’t climb trees and we found a high stack of cut logs to sit on, which she reluctantly agreed to!

We were back in Valdemarsvik by around 14:30 and treated ourselves to an ice-cream. Sitting at the table in the sun, Annette came by and chatted for a while – a really friendly, nice lady and I must say, an example of how to run a Tourist Office. Nearby there was a fountain with a nice statue of a naked lady – apparently it’s by a very well known sculptor and now she’s on my blog also . Such fame.

Back to the boat, another couple of rain showers. It’s so annoying, when the sun is out it’s lovely and warm but the big black clouds then come and spoil things. The rain made me do some more blogging and whilst I was about it, I got an email from the purchaser of our house asking for a formal 2 week extention to the agreed completion date, to enable him to secure finance. This we agreed to as he is a nice chap and the last thing we want is to have to go home and take everything out of storage and back to the house!

We’d decided to try the local pizzeria / burger place for dinner. It looks nice and seems popular. Julie had a seafood pizza which was very good but I fancied a change and to revert to English pub food, so I went for a burger & chips – not the best decision, it was OK I suppose but the pizza was definitely a better example of the genre than the burger was.